Monthly Archives: July 2008

After our fun times in Moab we drove on and got to Denver. We got in pretty late at night and had a hard time finding the rv park I had picked to stay at because there was a lot of construction in that area. Luckily we got there and Chris realized that I had picked out an rv park right next to a white water park so he could kayak in the morning.

Chris bought this really cool cherry wood acoustic guitar in Denver. We went to 2 different pawn shops but ended up getting this one for a good price from a unique place. The guitar sounds really good and Chris has already started to get better at playing it. After that Chris and I walked back to the rv where Chris saw a guy driving an old Jeep wrangler in distress. Of course Chris had to get out and go offer this fellow jeeper a hand in getting his car started again. Chris started walking over to him and then realized it was the creepiest looking guy ever in the front seat. He looked like Quasimodo except worse!! Luckily the Jeep started before he got there.

We drove through the city and went to Wynkop Brewery to have some yummy micro brewed beer and food. It was a 2 story bar/restaurant and of course we sampled every beer that they had. Chris fell in love with this one Chili flavored beer that they had and actually bought a growler of it to take home. It actually smelled and tasted like chili.

The brewery was right by the baseball stadium in Denver and there just happened to be a Rockies game that night so we decided to buy some tickets and head to the game, even though they were already losing. Instead of buying some scalpers tickets, another couple overheard us talking about going to the game and offered us their seats for 20 dollars only a few rows up in left field (they didn’t really want to go anymore since the Rockies were losing).

Oh ya and we had a really crazy experience on our drive to Denver at a KFC that involves me hitting an awning and Chris dragging the dirt bike behind the rv for 250 feet remarkably causing very little damage.

After Denver we drove FOREVER to get to St. Louis. Once we got there we checked out the law school, looked at apartments, and went to get drunk at the zoo err I mean Jammin at the Zoo We only had two days there so it was very stressful to try and learn the city and where I wanted to live for my first year of school.

We left St. Louis and did the full drive back to Clemson in one long day. We haven’t written anything because we have been super busy trying to move out of our apartments.

A souped-up market

Upstate businesses find success in auto parts, modifications

Chris Osborne of Spartanburg spent the last week of June driving cross-country, but it wasn’t a joy ride. (hahaha soo she thinks ; <– I added that)

The 24-year-old entrepreneur was headed to California to meet with his vendors, suppliers and competition.

“There’s nobody out there that competes with me locally,” says the owner of Illstreet, a Web-based company that sells more than 3,000 products to dress up a vehicle, with a focus on carbon fiber hoods. And while Osborne admits he and many others in the industry have been spooked about the bad economy, his products are zooming off the shelves faster than he can supply them.

Osborne is on the receiving end of a head-scratching trend. Despite the fact that new car sales in the U.S. have taken a heavy beating in the past few years, the automotive aftermarket – supplies for cars and trucks after the original sale – continues to grow. And the Upstate business community is well aware of that fact.

Sam Konduros, president of Greenville consulting firm SK Strategies LLC, says growth of the automotive aftermarket industry in the GSA area is a “natural development for our region.”

“The fact that the Upstate has become such a significant hub for the automotive industry makes it a fertile region to also attract significant aftermarket companies and investments. We are already home to a major OEM (BMW Manufacturing Co.), several system integrators (such as Magna International Inc.), more than 40 tier one suppliers (like Lear Corp.), and a huge number of tier two suppliers (like Alfmeier Corp., which is also a tier one supplier for some manufacturers),” he says.

Clemson University has been forging a relationship with the Specialty Equipment Marketing Association and is looking to bring a SEMA roundtable event to the ICAR campus in the next year or two, Konduros points out.

More suppliers in the region would be great with Osborne. He’s trying to find someone locally who can manufacture carbon fiber hoods. Right now he imports them from China, and while he says the profit margin is “decent,” if he had a local supplier he could fill a lot more orders. “Carbon fiber is in crazy short supply,” he says. “But there are guys willing to pay as much as it costs for it.”

The hood is basically an appearance enhancer, Osborne says. It gives the car a sleek, shiny look and it’s very lightweight so it doesn’t slow the car down, which is pretty important to guys into autocross racing, which most of his clients are.According to Osborne’s Web site, www.illstreet.net, hoods range from around $350 for a Honda Accord to $1,250 for a Hummer H2.

According to Daniel Majcen of the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association, the industry grew 4 percent last year. That rate was down slightly from the 5-5.4 percent increases it had seen over the past five years, but it was still healthy growth. The industry accounted for $190.5 billion in sales in 2004. The South Atlantic region, which includes South Carolina, accounted for the most growth.

Not all of that money is of the “Pimp My Ride” ilk, Majcen points out. “Because people are keeping their old vehicles longer and driving them more miles, they of course need more repairs,” he says.

While the industry does include accessories and enhancements, the bulk of Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association members provide replacement parts or tools and equipment necessary to make repairs. In fact, replacement parts account for 59.7 percent of the market, according to the most recent AAIA Auto Aftermarket Factbook. Chemicals, such as lubricants and fluids, account for 14.3 percent and tools and equipment 8 percent, leaving only 18 percent for accessories.

But obviously somebody out there is willing to drop big bucks on powerful engines and coolness enhancers. Illstreet recently conducted market research that showed the bulk of its clients were Asian and Hispanic males age 21-28. What surprised Osborne, he says, was the number of female buyers, who turned out to mostly be moms or girlfriends buying items as gifts.

Osborne says business always picks up in the summer – and this summer has been no exception. “I think the economic stimulus checks have helped a lot,” he says. “I’ve had several clients tell me that’s what they were spending their check on.” He says he did spend a great deal this year on advertising because he was worried luxury items such as his wouldn’t sell as well in current economic conditions. “I have the top spot on Google purchased (for several related keywords),” he says.

But so far, he’s been more worried about keeping up with the demand. It’s the same way for Hot Rod Construction of Piedmont, says owner Danny Wickett. His shop does reconstructions and modifications for classic automobiles and has won several awards for its work recently.

Nostalgia may play a role in the success of his business. And perhaps more guys are pouring money into that old flame in their garage rather than dropping dough on a brand new model.

“My clientele isn’t as affected (by the economy) as others,” he says. “They’re mostly wealthy gentlemen in their 50s and 60s who are reaching retirement and redoing the car they maybe had when they were in high school.”

Hot Rod Construction does 100 percent of its work in house, Wickett says, and that kind of custom work gets pretty pricey. Wickett says his clients often redo an entire car, which generally costs $100,000-$200,000, with souping up the engine being the heaviest expense.

If the cost of materials continues to climb, he is worried his business could be affected. “It’s definitely disposable income. This is something you want; not something you have to have,” he says.

On Wednesday night we ended up stopping in Green River, Utah, about an hour outside of Moab. We weren’t tired or anything but we actually wanted to see the drive into Moab. Here we are driving one of the most scenic routes in the west…..in pitch black darkness. Green River didn’t really have much to offer; we couldn’t even order pizza once we got there because everything was closed by 11. We watched some Invasion episodes (Chris and I bought most of the series when a Hollywood Video was going out of business by his house. It has basically been what we watch anytime we turn on the tv. Its a sci-fi series that is about aliens taking over human bodies. We only have about 5 episodes left until we are done with it).

In the morning, we pay for our rv park and they give us a coupon for 3 cents off each gallon of gasoline!! (we saved about 50 cents) and a buy on get one free 6 inch Blimpie sub..(woohoo) AND a free bag of pop corn. We figure that had a retail value of about 4.50; which is always nice to save when you have already over drafted one of your debit cards (thanks Amelia for taking care of that for me). We arrive at Moab around 4 o’clock and started scouting out rv parks to stay at. We also went to a bunch of auto parts stores because Chris needed to get the rear wheel bearing replaced before our tire came off and we crashed. They finally found the parts at a store and the guy was super nice. By this point Chris called EVERY body shop in town and no one would fix it for us; Chris decided to just buy the tools he needed and fix it himself. (total cost for that, right around 100 dollars)

After driving through about 6 rv parks, we picked River Oasis Rv Park which is a few miles outside of town on the Colorado River. We pay our fee (30 dollars a night with our Good Sams Discount) and go to the spot the assign us. The guy working went on and on about how this is the best spot is the park and has the most shade there is. We pull in and walk out, there is zero shade and about a million mosquitoes. We go straight back up there to get our money back or get moved to a spot away from mosquito creek. We eventually move to a spot that is better and we get a 50 percent discount on buying 100 percent DEET bug spray.

So we spray up and open up our Yosemite beers (we had bought them before we camped overnight but hadn’t had a chance to drink them yet.) After settling in, we took the dirt bike into town to get some dinner. We went to this pretty nice pizza place that had a buffet but also had a full menu. (Chris has a thing about buffets and will not eat at one unless there is ample protection from germs; this one did not pass his standards) While waiting for our table, we went to the bar to grab a locally brewed beer. The waitress tells us that it is a private club and we needed to buy a 4 dollar membership to drink (with that membership we got 4 dollars off our meal so it evened out) About halfway through our beers, our name is called to eat. We carry our drinks out and we are stopped saying that we had to leave our beers at the exit of the bar area and have a waiter carry them to our table (some super weird Utah law, I have no idea what they gain by doing that).

Moab was awesome and we rented this really cool Rhino (offroading gocart thingy) to see the awesome wilderness there. Best 24 hours and 200 dollars spent ever. After wilderness camping we have a interesting KFC story to tell from our drive. We are now in denver and kayaked and drank beer. Almost over, I promise more updates soon.

As most of you know from our earlier posts, the gas gauge on the rv does not work. It does move around sometimes but it never reflects how much gas we actually have. There has been a few times on this trip that we have thought we ran out of gas, but so far Grand Canyon was the only place it actually happened….until yesterday.

If any of you have ever been to Nevada, not including Los Vegas, you would know how bad our situation was. After my last post when we hung out in that McDonalds for 4 hours, we bought 38 dollars worth of gas. The gas pump clicked off so we thought we were good to go. We had been filling up intermittently when gas prices looked good.

I am driving while Chris is fixing things all over the inside of the rv. We are going though the desert and mountain ranges of Nevada where every ten miles or so, you might see an unmarked dirt road. We drive for almost an hour and then see a sign that says next gas 71 miles. (We hadn’t seen a gas station in our first hour of driving). We think nothing of it because we thought we had a full tank of gas…opppssiees, we were wrong.

The rv started skipping when I would push on the gas petal and then all of a sudden, the accelerator wouldn’t go anymore. I yell out to Chris and he comes up to the front and gets in the drivers seat. We couldn’t even pull off the road because there was a 4 or 5 foot drop on each side covered with gravel. We coasted until we completely stopped; we were parked in the road in the middle of NO WHERE.

Here is where the next problem comes in, that gas tank we are supposed to keep on the back for these situations has only less than a gallon in it; meaning we could only get 10 miles or so on that.

Another problem; we have zero cell phone and internet service. Yes I do have aaa but that doesn’t help if you can’t call them to bring out extra gas to you.

And one last problem; the nearest gas station is 65 miles each way. We used the GPS to try and figure out where we could drive the dirt bike to and fill up the gas tank. Well not only is a 130 mile round trip a long time to be on the dirt bike, but the 5 gallon tank won’t even get us all the way to the gas stations.

How does someone get out of this situation?? Well I don’t know about normal people but Chris and I loaded up our under a gallon in extra gas and started the rv. We were hoping that we could at least get off the road to prevent an accident. It takes a minute or so to start up because we were so empty. Chris starts moving again wheennn……

We see a small factory and a few trucks on the right hand side. They had a parking lot that we could pull over in and maybe get a landline to call for help. This was the first building we had seen since we left the small town so we were sooooo lucky that we ran out of gas right there. You might think that’s the end but there is more…

This happened to be a factory that made gasoline. (Yes I know that is not the official term, refinery for crude oil ect. Just accept it for the point of the story) Who runs out of gas right in front of a gas factory??? We walk in the building and meet a young guy named Bruce who just happened to be filling up one of the company cars to go into town. He said even though they are completely not allowed to give any gas to non employees, he agrees to give us a few gallons after filling up his car. Then another employee pulls in needed gas so Bruce said he would give us a couple gallons from his fill up too.

We were saved. After we got 8 gallons of the freshest gas this old rv has ever had in it. We tried to offer Bruce some money for the gas to pay for it or at least so he can buy a case of beer or something on us. He refuses and said it was the right thing to do to help us out.

Chris and I were so astonished that this actually happened to us. We got back on the road and made it to the gas station with plenty to spare (although it took us almost 200 dollars to fill it back up) In that little town we got some Mexican food and then drove another 80 miles to an rv park for the night where we got to take SHOWERS. (you would be that excited too if you had to sit next to us in a restaurant) We are currently in Utah, about 5 hours from Moab, and plan on spending tonight and tomorrow night there. Hopefully we stay out of trouble for those couple hours and don’t worry, we will pay WAY more attention to the gas level after that scare.

(To inspire you to read all of this and forgive me for not keeping up with the blog I will fill you in on some cool facts: yes we did actually see a bear, Chris hit something in the rv, I got pulled over, and we had a near death experience. I know you are excited to read now)

On Sunday afternoon we left Los Angeles (happily because we were done with all the traffic, smog, and basically LA in general. We grabbed some Subway (with guacamole again, all of the Subways down south should add that to their menu). We were staying in the Asian side of town and right across from Subway there was a jewelry store (I had completely ruined all of my Tiffany’s bracelets from being in the hot tub the night before, they were literally like a matte ugly grey color). I went in to see if they would clean them for me and the guy cleaned them and they looked perfect again. I asked him if I owed him anything for cleaning them (I have never gotten jewelry cleaned before so I didn’t know if it cost anything or what) and the guy said it was $20 cash. I thought that was super expensive and I only had 14 dollars on me. So him and I went back and forth for about 5 minutes (he didn’t speak much English) but I got away with only paying the $14 (my daddy would be proud of my bardering skills)

After that Chris and I went to this Asian Appliance company (Chris is trying to tell me now that it was called Happy Feel Good but I don’t believe him). Anyways we were looking for a small portable air conditioner because it is super HOT driving down the road with only the windows open. We look at a bunch of them and then decide to buy one for around $60 dollars. We go outside to the rv in the parking lot and fill this little machine with water (it works with water and ice). We plug it in and suddenly the thing started smoking and dripping water from a bunch of cracks. Let’s just say that we took that thing back so fast, we didn’t even have time to put it in the box. We didn’t want the rv to burn down! After those two excursions we decided it was defiantly time to get out of LA and head to Yosemite.

The drive there wasn’t too bad other than a couple miles of %6 grade through the mountains. A lot of the drive was actually pretty scenic. We even got to stop at a Camping World and Walmart to stock up on supplies. (We had been looking to stop at a Camping World since we left for the trip. Every time we pass them, they are closed or too far out of the way. We actually carried a 40 dollar vent with us, not small either, that we finally got to return and get out of the rv.)

So after about 5ish hours of driving, we pass through Fresno and start heading into Yosemite. We went in the south entrance and as we were going in there was TONS and TONS of traffic on this single land road, all heading away from the park. Chris and I started to get really worried that the park was being evacuated because of all the fires in California right now. Chris went to the Yosemite website on his phone and said that the air quality there is very poor right now from the fires which made us even more nervous; but of course we keep going. Well we realized all the traffic was from this HUGE casino right outside the park and were very happy it wasn’t an evacuation.

Chris had looked up a campsite right outside the park and around 12:30 we drove down into it hoping to plug in and sleep. The place was full and $45 !?!? a night for this crappy parking lot where all the rvs were packed in like sardines. Luckily the weather was cold enough that we decided to keep on driving and not plug in for the night (there were no more rv plug ins on the way to the park). We drive on the curvy road for another 45 minutes wondering how big of a mistake we had made going in this far until we pull up to Fish Camp, a mile from the entrance to the park. We pull down and guess what, ONE spot left (Chris and I can’t even count how many times we have gotten lucky and taken the last spot.) We pull in and go right to sleep.

In the morning we wake up and walk over to the entrance to figure out what we want to do for the day. We talk to the very nice campsite manager and he gives us a map and some information. He also tells us that there is a small waterfall just up the road. Chris and I walked up there to see it and Chris said he had kayaked bigger waterfalls than that. Haha but it was a nice start to the day. We get back and there was this creek right behind out campsite. When we were going to the waterfall we saw a bunch of Mexicans trying to fish in it but they left by the time we came back. Chris and I made some lunch and went to eat it by the creek. Our feet were in the water and all of a sudden we started to see crawfish EVERYWHERE. In our little area there were at least 6. Of course Chris decided he needs to start catching some and after feeding one of them some of his quesidilla, he got one. Overall, it was a pretty cool start to our day.

We packed up and drove into the park (saving 20 dollars with our sweet National Park Pass). Right through the entrance was the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. They wouldn’t let the rv down the road so we unloaded the dirt bike and rode off to see the big trees.

Now although these trees aren’t as tall as the coastal redwoods (they grow to 628 feet tall and the ones we saw top out around 310 feet) It was about a mile hike out to see the Grizzly Giant (one of the largest trees in Mariposa Gove and is estimated to be about 2700 years old). The branches on top are 7 feet in diameter!

1/4 mile further there is the Clothespin Tree which you can walk through or stretch out in like Chris and I did. We knew that we didn’t have much time to spend (we have less than 2 weeks until we have to be back in Clemson) so we decided to turn around and hike a different trail out.

We were going to load the dirtbike back on the rv and the parking lot was packed with cars. (Loading the dirt bike usually takes about 10 minutes because you have to unscrew the ramp hook up up roll it on blah blah). Some nice guys from the car next to us offered to help Chris just lift the bike on saving us time. We drive over to the gas station and paig 5.09 a gallon to fill up (in case most of you are wondering, gas in California hasn’t been too bad yet. The only time we have ever had to pay over 5 dollars was in the Grand Canyon and Yosemite.) After that we went to the back country permit office so we could hike off into the wilderness and camp for the night. The permit was free although we had to put a credit card deposit and pay 5 dollars for a bear canister rental. All food and scented things must be locked up in there and let me tell you, it even took Chris and me a couple minutes to break into it.

We had gotten our permit to hike out to a waterfall about 3 miles from the main road. We parked the rv on the side of the road and had to empty all of our open food into the big bear locker in the parking lot. We were the only people parked there and the only people that were going to be camping within miles of there. It took us almost 2 hours to pack up our packs and bear proof the rv. It was about 5:30 when we finally started hiking in and our big pack had to weigh at least 80 pounds (we had a tent, sleeping bags, the bear canister, gallon of water, lantern, and a lot of extra stuff that we didn’t have to take when we went to the Grand Canyon). I carried the pack for the first, lets say .5 miles and I almost fell to the ground. They failed to tell us that we would be hiking straight up a mountain for 3 miles. It was even steeper than the Grand Canyon. Chris did the guy thing and carried it the rest of the way up and I carried the small pack. The sun sets at 8:20 and we were getting close to both the sunset and the waterfall. Chris tells me to start looking for a place where we can camp when all of a sudden…..

A BEAR!!!! I freak out and stop in my tracks and say omg Chris look there is a bear. He doesn’t believe me at first because he was concentrating on the GPS but when he turns and looks, there is a bear about 30 feet from the trail scratching his back on a tree!! He was really close and we decided to just keep walking because the bear stopped what he was doing and just started staring at us. We walked another 15 feet and then decided to take the camera out and try to take a picture. The picture turned out blurry but we didn’t want to mess with the bear anymore. We kept walking down the trail, turning around ever 10 feet to make sure he wasn’t following us. It was really cool to see the bear but it did make me a lot more scared to be sleeping out in the wilderness that night. We were also scared that our rv might get attacked in the parking lot. (It was impossible for us to empty all the food and smelly things into the bear locker because we didn’t want things to get stolen)

We get to the waterfall right as the sun sets below the mountains. Great, beautiful, wonderful, ummm we still need a place to sleep. So we kept following the trail and the forest turned really lush and green all around the creek that let to the waterfall. (The rest of the forest had big trees and had a lot of fire damage which prevented brush from growing). Chris and I dropped our packs and literally started running to find a spot……and there it was, the perfect camping spot right on the creek (which was not allowed, oops, we had to sleep somewhere). We run back and grab the packs, quickly make a fire ring, put up the tent, get firewood, then relax and make some dinner. We were really tired from our busy day so we went to bed around 11:30 after sitting by the fire and enjoying being back in the wilderness and away from the noise and pollution. Before we could sleep, we had to wash all the dishes and put the bear canister, med kit, bug spray, sunscreen ect. all over 100 feet from our camp to keep us safe. Call me paranoid but we also slept with the lantern on all night outside just in case.

We wake up in the morning to the bigs chirping after getting a pretty decent night sleep. The temperature was nice and it was a beautiful sunny day. We start to tear down camp and make pancakes over the fire for breakfast. We needed to hurry up and get back to cell phone service because it was a Monday and Chris is always SUPER busy on Monday’s with work. Chris is the professional camping pancake maker (ever since the pancakes he made on Spring Break 2 years ago when we camped on the Chattoga with Scotty and Cori). It was around noon by the time we started hiking out and we were a little sore from all the hiking we did from the day before (yesss Kevin we are trying to get into better shape Luckily our hike today was completely down hill (which is worse for my knee) and we hauled ass out of there. I think we made it out in little over an hour when it took us almost 3 to hike it. We get back to the rv and…….

everything was fine (haha I built some suspense there with the ….. you thought a bear attacked the rv didn’t you!) We unpacked out food and trash out of the locker and no one stole anything (yay!). Chris hops in the driver seat and we had to drive a couple miles back to the back country office to return our bear canister. The roads there are very narrow and not really made for rvs and trucks to pass each other. The road also has big poles sticking out every 30 feet so the snow plow trucks don’t drive off the road in the winter. Well lets see, old rv, small curvy roads, frequent metal poles, and cliffs……..BANG there goes our passenger side mirror. A truck crossed over the line and Chris avoided it by swerving and it took out the mirror and mirror extender we had on it. Unfortunately, my window was open so the mirror shatters and comes in the rv hitting me (I was completely fine, most of it went outside) Chris freaked out when he saw that I might be hurt (I did scream) and he swerved hitting the back corner of the rv loosening the awning. We pull over and none of the damage is bad. We actually even have an extra mirror in the rv in our pile of stuff we were going to return. We walk back to the pole we hit and make sure everything is out of the road before we get back in and drive again, Chris of course made me drive after that.

We return the bear canister and could get a little bit of phone service by the hotel there. Chris checks his 12 voice mails and calls people back because we know there is no way we will have service as we drive the 45 miles out of the park. At first we weren’t that impressed with Yosemite; it was beautiful but it didn’t seem like we had seen anything too special at this point. We went into the village…eh…and then just decided we had seen enough and started heading out. A couple miles outside of the village there was a bunch of really sick rapids that we got out to look at. There were a bunch of class 4 navigable rapids all right in a row; if only we were a little better at kayaking we totally could have run them.

We stop a little while later to take pictures of this other waterfall down the road that was really cool. The drive then started to turn waayyy more senic. We started to see amazing views and even climed up to 10,000 feet! I think the road we were driving on was 120 (we were basically just following the GPS) and it was breathtaking. This drive, although it was long and slow, totally changed out views about Yosemite. We stopped so many times to take pictures and I don’t even think most of the pictures do it justice. We even got to see snow on the ground! This is the first time I’ve ever seen snow in the middle of July. We wish we could have had another night to camp up in the wilderness, even though it was a lot colder up there. There were lakes, rivers and waterfalls everywhere and we even saw a bunch of dear on the side of the road.

Now most of you wouldn’t appreciate this but I am saying this in support of all rv drivers in the United States. They go slow and they are hard to drive no matter how much experience you have. There are places called turnouts every mile or so and we pulled off every time to let cars pass. We probably pulled over at least 30 times and had 2 people that honked and waved. So here is my public service announcement, as long as you don’t tailgate us, we will pull over for your guys; when we do pull over, a wave is greatly appreciated because we do go out of our way and waste time slowing down and stopping.

So after we stop in our shorts and t-shirts to throw snowballs at each other, we jump back in and I am still driving. There wasn’t any turnouts for a while so I could see in the backup camera that there were a couple cars backed up behind us. All of a sudden, red and blue flashing lights behind us and a speaker saying for us to pull over ASAP. Those of you who know me or have been with me when I got pulled over (Brittney, Amelia, Olivia), know that I do NOT deal well with it. I immediately start teering up because I didn’t know what I did wrong. The park ranger comes up and said I went left of center on a turn and wanted to make sure I hadn’t been drinking. Of Course I Haven’t Been Drinking!!! I could obviously barely even drive these roads sober!! (note from chris: haha, she drives like a drunk person) He asks for license, registration and insurance and luckily I had labeled the registration and insurance in an envelope and knew where they were; my drivers license was another story. The rv is a MESS and I mean complete and total MESS. It took me 5 minutes to dig through pounds of dirty clothes and out backpack as I am freaking out the whole time I am looking. He takes everything back to his car and comes back with only a warning, PHEW! I can’t afford a ticket.

After that, I made Chris drive. The ranger also warned us about the steep grade we were only a couple miles from. He said it was the steepest thing he has ever been on and said we have to have good breaks to make it; another reason to make Chris drive. The sun was setting and we were contemplating just staying and the beautiful campsites and saving the difficult drive for the morning. We knew that we just needed to get out because we didn’t have time to stay. We see the first sign that says 8% grade for the next 11 miles. For those of you that don’t know, most of the roads that have run away truck ramps and really steep grade signs are only 6%, 8% is even MORE insane. We start going and in less than 2 miles, we had to pull over because our breaks basically stopped working. There were overheated and if you poured water on them, the water evaporate instantly. This is when we knew we were in trouble.

At this point we couldn’t make it back up the mountain but we also couldn’t go down; we were basically stuck on the side of the road waiting for the breaks to cool. Being stuck isn’t too bad when you are in an rv because we made a nice dinner and watched a movie while we waited. After almost two hours, they were cooler and Chris thought we could try to go another couple miles. Now you have to understand that the rv was backfiring the whole time, there are a few mechanical problems that we haven’t identified yet that could all be very critical for this drive, we are driving a 1973 rv, there is a STEEP cliff on one side and only a few places to pull over. We were basically prepared to crash into the mountain if necessary; it was really scary. We buckled our seat belts, said a quick prayer, a kiss in case we didn’t make it, and slowly started heading down.

Obviously I am writing this right now so we are alive and well. I can’t remember the last time I was that scared though. If I had cell phone service I probably would have called home and woken up my family just to say I love them. We were very lucky. At this point there was one gas station and nothing else for miles. We filled up on gas and kept on driving.

For those of you that have never driven through no where, we have multiple times now. Literally a road, (this one have tons of dips in it) and the road has no pull offs, intersections, or any other cars on it. Chris tells me to look at a map because it is almost 11 at this point (it took hours to get only a few miles out of the park) and I say hmmm, the nearest rv park is over 100 miles away. The nearest town is 40 miles away. So we get to the town and see a sign that says population 164. 164?!?!?! If you have a baby or go away to college they actually can update the population. There was one gas station/grocery store/post office combination that was all closed. We bought some gas and decided to keep driving until we had cell phone service. We drive for another mile and by the looks of everything, we are back in the desert, surrounded by mountains. One bar of service, no service, extended network, roaming…..finally 2 bars of service!! We pull over right there and decide to just sleep on the side of the road for the night. We watch a little tv and then go to bed in the middle of no where.

We wake up in the morning around 9:30, burning up because it was so hot. Chris answers some calls and then we keep driving. Oh ya I think I forgot to say this but we are in Nevada now. If you want to know where, just pick a spot away from civilization and thats where we are. We finally came up on a town today and it was unlike anything we have ever seen before. It was almost like and old cowboy town (Chris said he expected to see a Wagon Wheel or something). We are sitting in the McDonald’s right now so I can finally blog some for all you avid readers and so Chris can answer Illstreet e-mails. Unfortunately about 4 bus loads full of smelly, loud, annoying high school kids filled this place for almost 45 minutes. Chris and I almost had to step outside to get some fresh air. From here was are going to get on route 50 and head in to Moab where we will hopefully be able to do some kayaking.

Look for updates to LA and San Diego soon. I am going to try to catch up on all of those as soon as I can and post more pictures. I really do apologize for not having time to write. We have the whole rest of our trip planned out (not because we are over achievers otr anything, we are basically following one of the routes in a cross country book Chris bought) and have only a week and a half of adventures left to go. From Moab we are going through Colorado, Kansas, and St. Louis (where we have to stop and try to find and apartment for me for law school.) We are about 11 hours still from where we need to be in Utah so we will probably be sleeping on the side of the road again tonight (although at this point we REALLY need showers, it’s been a couple days, and to do laundry; I just washed my face in the McDonald’s bathroom) We miss you all and can’t wait to get back out of the desert again.

(sorry this one was so long, 6 pages in Microsoft Word—I have to type in there so it corrects my horrible spelling for me)